Don't want to lose, don't want to cry, just want to keep laughing
by dark insanity 13
Summary: Kaminari just wants to know what makes Bakugou laugh. [Post-chapter 166, may contain minor spoilers, rated for Bakugou's many F-bombs]


Kaminari hears Bakugou snort for the fourth time in half an hour, and decides his curiosity is too much to ignore because anything that makes Bakugou laugh must be funny (well, other than Midoriya being punched in the family jewels by a four-year-old). "Okay, what are you looking at on your phone that's so funny?" he asks.

"None of your fucking business," Bakugou answers, to no surprise. He continues smirking at his phone, and lets out another snerk.

Annoyed, Kaminari turns to Kirishima to see if he has any insight as to what Bakugou could be looking at, but the redhead meets his gaze and seems equally out of the loop, shrugging helplessly before going back to the game he's playing on his 3DS. With a pout, Kaminari decides that he needs to take matters into his own hands and investigate. This is a potentially dangerous mission, but he considers it necessary to sate his curiosity; worst case, he gets blasted and/or his brain forcibly fried as punishment for his attempt, which'll probably make Kirishima laugh, and that's something Bakugou probably can get behind because they've all noticed how down their friend's been since he got back from the hospital. He's been mum about the details so far (all they really know is what they saw on the news and heard from teachers), but Kaminari knows these sorts of things take time, so he's patient.

That aside, he waits a couple minutes to make sure Bakugou's guard goes down a bit before enacting his plan. He stands, saying "I'm getting a drink, anyone else want anything?", to which Kirishima asks for a cola and Tokoyami apple juice (which, to Kaminari inwardly, is kind of the funniest thing because he doesn't seem like a juice kind of guy), while Shouji declines his offer and Bakugou merely grunts, eyes not leaving his phone. Kaminari saunters off to the kitchen, then as soon as he's there, he looks to see if anyone in the lounge area where he was is watching. Satisfied that no one's paying him any attention, he drops into an army crawl, and quietly makes his way back, slipping underneath the chairs and tables of the dining area.

It's not exactly the most complicated strategy, but though Bakugou's generally pretty smart and aware of his surroundings, Kaminari knows he's an only child and hasn't had to deal with nosy siblings while being nosy himself. Kaminari, on the other hand, frequently goes back and forth on such silly antics with his brother, so he's developed ways to get around someone who's got a much higher guard than Bakugou thanks to experience. He's also pretty sure Bakugou's under the impression Kaminari's not _that_ much of an idiot; joke's on him, Kaminari is indeed that much of an idiot if it's for the sake of fun.

As he's crawling along the floor, Satou passes by, spots him, and gives him an odd look. Kaminari merely turns to him with a serious expression and holds a finger to his mouth in the universal sign of "keep quiet, don't say anything". Satou shrugs and continues on his way, settling onto one of the ottomans by the TV. Midoriya shuffles past as well, albeit in the opposite direction as Satou, evidently having returned from a run judging by his workout clothes and sweaty appearance, but he just looks baffled at Kaminari for a moment as he goes by, not even pausing as he heads towards the kitchen (probably to get some water); he's probably decided that not asking questions is in his best interest.

Before long Kaminari's behind the couch Bakugou's sitting on, and carefully he gets up to peek over Bakugou's shoulder. He's got a text conversation open, though half of what the other person's sending him seems to be images. Vaguely familiar images, but Kaminari doesn't focus on that, and instead zeroes in on the contact name.

"Who the heck's 'Ms. Illusion'?" he asks, forgetting that he was supposed to be sneaky.

Bakugou jolts in his seat, nearly dropping his phone in surprise, and reflexively he whirls around with a hand raised and crackling. Yelping, Kaminari ducks back down to avoid getting his face exploded. After a blink, Bakugou realizes that the person who caught him by surprise isn't a threat and is in fact just his dumbass of a friend, and he relaxes into an angry scowl. "What the fuck, Drooly?" he snarls, returning to his slouch. "Anyone ever tell you not to sneak up on people?"

"Well, Aizawa seems to encourage it in some situations, but sorry if I actually scared you," Kaminari replies, sitting up now that it seems safe. Bakugou scoffs and grumbles something like "wasn't fucking scared", petulantly returning to his phone, allowing Kaminari to take the opportunity to look at again. "So who's 'Ms. Illusion'? Pretty sure it's no one in the class."

"I told you, none of your fucking business."

"It's Camie, from our training course," Todoroki answers, having materialized in the kitchen sometime in the last couple minutes. "She's from Shiketsu Academy and insisted on exchanging contact information with both of us."

Bakugou turns to send a withering glare at Todoroki, but goes back to his phone when it pings and he lets out a snort at whatever new message just appeared.

"Camie from Shiketsu? Wait, like Midoriya's naked chick from the first part of the provisional licence exam?" Sero asks, walking over with a towel around his neck, hair damp from the baths.

Several things happen at the same time; Midoriya spits and chokes on the water he was drinking at that moment, Bakugou's phone slips from his hand, Kirishima fumbles his 3DS, Satou drops the TV remote, and Kaminari lets out a very odd strangled noise. Todoroki, Shouji, and Tokoyami merely blink in bewilderment while Sero grins at the chaos he inadvertently (or not; hard to tell with Sero sometimes) caused.

Bakugou sputters ( _sputters!_ Kaminari thinks to himself) for a moment then whirls to face the kitchen. " _Naked_?! What the fuck are you talking about?!"

Midoriya's still coughing up water, Todoroki awkwardly patting his back in an attempt to help, so Sero speaks up. "Oh yeah, I guess you weren't listening when I told that story. In the first part of the provisional licence exam, when Uraraka and I found Midoriya he was behind a bunch of rubble with that girl from Shiketsu and she was stark naked."

"Midoriya, I'm still jealous of you, getting action before the rest of us!" wails Kaminari.

"Deku, what the fucking fuck!" Bakugou shouts, though unlike Satou or Kirishima, his expression is more disgusted than flustered.

"I-It's not like that!" Midoriya finally replies, getting a handle on his coughing. "Like I told Kaminari and Mineta before, it was her quirk! A-And besides, it wasn't even-"

He pauses, suddenly looking unsure, and his gaze flickers past Bakugou and Kaminari to where Kirishima's sitting. Kaminari watches as they seem to communicate through eyes alone, and it's with that he figures they must be thinking of something that must've happened during their internship; it's likely Midoriya's wondering if whatever he was about to say was safe information to talk about with the rest of them.

After several beats of silence, Midoriya clears his throat and continues. "Besides, I've recently come to believe that may have been someone else. Someone nobody should be, or _want_ to be, alone with."

The air feels heavy all of a sudden, which was not at all what Kaminari intended with all of this. Determined to lighten things up again, he turns to Bakugou with a pout. "So anyway, you've been texting your new girlfriend this whole time?"

Bakugou's sneer somehow becomes even more disgusted at the suggestion as he looks to Kaminari. At this point in the school year, Kaminari's rather used to Bakugou's glaring so he barely feels a shiver. He can't wait to get to the point where he's immune like Kirishima is (who has the extra bonus of being resistant to Bakugou's literal explosions). "Fuck off, Drooly, she's not my girlfriend. I'm not like you and that dipshit grapehead; I got better things to put my time and energy into than the bullshit you call relationships."

"Fine, then what the heck is she sending you that causes the supposedly humourless Bakugou Katsuki to laugh?"

"If I show you, will you leave me the fuck alone?" Bakugou growls.

"About that, yeah. Won't promise regarding anything else though," Kaminari replies easily, grinning.

Bakugou grimaces a moment, then sighs, rolls his eyes, and holds his phone up for Kaminari to see. Giving a little cheer in victory, Kaminari leans closer to have a look. A couple beats pass before he frowns. "Wait a second," he says, bring up a hand to scroll up earlier in the conversation. "Are these _memes_?"

Nearby, Kirishima snorts. One of Bakugou's eyebrows slowly climbs towards his hairline, to which he answers with a dry "sure".

Kaminari keeps scrolling, expression becoming more indignant. "Dude, what the hell! I've sent you several of these and you called them stupid and a waste of messages!"

Bakugou's eyebrow twitches, a tell Kaminari's learned since moving into the dorms that means he's resisting a smile. "Yeah, they're funny when she sends them, because her sense of humour isn't stupid like yours."

"That doesn't even make sense!"

By now Kirishima, Shouji, Satou, Tokoyami, and Sero are all laughing to some degree, and the twitching in Bakugou's eyebrow is getting more frequent. Kaminari knows he's being messed with, and honestly he can't be mad, because now he also knows that Bakugou actually does find the things he sends funny, and the atmosphere has lightened up again. Huffing, pretending to be more miffed than he really is, he stands to get the drinks he promised Kirishima and Tokoyami, grumbling all the while. Midoriya's fled the kitchen, likely wanting to avoid any further confrontations regarding whatever happened during the provisional licence exam, but Todoroki remains.

"He calls her Ms. Illusion since that is her quirk," Todoroki explains. "He was initially resistant to giving her any contact information until she created an illusion that he found especially funny while we were dealing with our task."

Now _that_ is potentially juicy information. Kaminari pauses on his way to the fridge and turns to Todoroki. "Yeah? What illusion was that?"

Todoroki doesn't answer immediately, taking a bite of cookie, chewing and swallowing it before speaking. "It was an illusion of me, saying something like 'I've been entranced by your cute face', and there were flowers everywhere." He shrugs. "I still don't really understand what was so funny about it, but Bakugou wouldn't stop snickering about it for quite a while after."

Kaminari stares at him for a minute, absolutely sure that Todoroki is pulling his leg, but Todoroki merely stares back with an expression that becomes more perplexed the longer Kaminari doesn't move. It finally clicks that Todoroki is absolutely not kidding both about the illusion and the fact he didn't understand what made it funny, and Kaminari hurries to grab Kirishima and Tokoyami's drinks before zooming out of the kitchen back to the lounge area. All but Bakugou look up as he slams the drinks down on the table then turns to the explosive hero-in-training with a determined look in his eye, ignoring Kirishima's complaint about shaking up his cola.

"Kacchan," he says, knowing it'll immediately get his attention.

Sure enough, Bakugou glances up with an annoyed glare. "Fucking what now?"

"Imagine I'm Todoroki." Then, as Bakugou's opening his mouth to question what the heck he's on about, Kaminari plants a foot on the table next to him, leans heavily on it while sweeping an arm out and placing a hand on his chest in a pose highly reminiscent of a prince in a cheesy shoujo series, and speaks in his best impression of a dramatically suave voice, "Princess! Even if the world would cease to exist in this moment, I want to be the man who sacrifices his own life to keep you from harm!"

There's silence - everyone in the lounge staring at him in various stages of bafflement - for several beats before there's a barely muffled snerk, then another, and they watch as Bakugou's face screws up trying to hold in his laughter before he lets out a long snort followed shortly by a hearty burst of laughter, clutching his stomach. The others all gape in wide-eyed wonder, never having heard Bakugou laugh so openly, while Kaminari stands proudly, a wild grin stretched across his face at his accomplishment. It doesn't take long for Bakugou's laughter to be infectious, everyone joining in as Todoroki watches in bewilderment.

"Is...Is Bakugou laughing?" comes a new voice, and Kaminari turns to see Uraraka, Ashido, Hagakure, and Tsuyu coming over from the front door, having returned from a shopping trip. They're all equally surprised at the sight before them.

"Who knew Bakugou could sound so pure," Uraraka murmurs, voice mildly teasing but still full of wonder.

"It's oddly refreshing," muses Tsuyu.

"Kaminari, what the fuck was that?!" Bakugou finally says as he starts to calm down, actually smiling for once.

"Testing a bit of a theory," Kaminari sings, flopping down beside him. "Got you to laugh though! Hey, you gotta get this Camie chick to show us that Todoroki illusion sometime!"

Bakugou eyes him for a minute, his smile relaxed down to a more Bakugou-like smirk, then he snorts, shakes his head, and goes back to his phone. "Whatever, I'll think about it, Drooly. Don't think that'll work on me a second time."

Kaminari's not deterred. "Just means I'll have to try harder!"

Bakugou simply answers by reaching over and shoving his shoulder. Kaminari laughs as he falls over, then retrieves his own phone from his pocket and decides to start doing some meme research; he needs to up his game after all.

* * *

A/N: Title from Movin' by Takacha, the 8th Bleach ending...Don't judge me, it's a good song and fits the feel I was going for.

When I started, this was only intended to be like four or five paragraphs I was just gonna post on Tumblr, and now it's finished at 4 and a half pages; now ain't that the story of my life (alongside my inability to stay focused on any WIP for long, RIP me I've got so many other things I ought to be finishing). This is just a silly little thing that came from the initial idea of Kaminari whining about Bakugou thinking memes from Camie are funny but not from him, and it just sorta...took a little longer to get to that point than I had thought when I set out.

I suppose this is largely inspired by some of saisai-chan's (on Tumblr) metas and posts about Bakugou and wanting to see him chill with the other 1-A kids, and honestly, while Bakugou's not my fave (that goes to Kirishima, though Baku is in the top 5), that's something I can whole-heartedly agree with.

Kaminari having a brother is a headcanon of mine, namely a younger one, but I saw a comic by xkumah (on Tumblr) about him having an older brother that I really liked so I left it open as to whether Kaminari was the older or younger brother. Either way, I would not recommend being like Kaminari and putting your nose into your friends' or siblings' business; I think ordinarily Bakugou would be pretty pissed at him, but there wasn't anything especially private he and Camie were messaging each other about and he knows Kaminari is chronically Innocently Insensitive (I'm still a TV Tropes addict) so he let it go just this once.

Kaminari's "prince-like line" is a paraphrase of one of Tamaki Suoh's lines from Ouran High School Host Club, because honestly he's the first thing that pops into my head when it comes to such things :'D I've also taken to nicknaming illusion!Todoroki "U.A. High School Host Club Todoroki" so there's that.

All in all, Kaminari can be a pretty observant guy when it comes to the people around him, so while yeah he's got a bit of foot-in-mouth syndrome, he has been noted to observe that Bakugou's not nearly as bad a guy as his attitude might suggest, or in the very least has noticed that Bakugou's grown as a person from the beginning of the year and has come to respect him and see him as a friend as a result. In the same vein, Bakugou doesn't seem to mind hanging around Kaminari, to the point he didn't put up any complaint when Kaminari called him "Kacchan" in chapter 163 (assuming that wasn't just a translation choice on Mangastream's part), but he still does things like shoving Kaminari off-balance so he falls on the couch, so I feel their friendship is a lot of back-and-forth playful ribbing and and teasing. I kinda tried to convey that, so hopefully I was successful?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. I'd appreciate any constructive feedback!


End file.
